


A Short Curricle Ride in Somerset

by DowagerLadyB



Category: HEYER Georgette - Works, The Corinthian - Georgette Heyer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 22:21:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29196777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DowagerLadyB/pseuds/DowagerLadyB
Summary: This picks up right after the end of The Corinthian.
Relationships: Penelope "Pen" Creed/Richard Wyndham
Comments: 8
Kudos: 24





	A Short Curricle Ride in Somerset

“Where are we going, Richard?” Pen asked a little shyly as they climbed up into the curricle. The heavy green and gold coach with its horrified roof passengers was out of sight now, and the dusty road was empty.

“Crome Hall!” he said with a reassuring little smile. “Lady Luttrell is looking forward to receiving you.”

She fell silent as the Corinthian took the reins and set Cedric Brandon’s horses in motion. Her mind was whirling, and this new piece of information – Lady Luttrell? How? - did not seem so important to her just now, as she tried to assimilate her situation, which had altered almost in the blink of an eye from the abject misery of the night and morning to this sudden fierce joy that she was almost afraid to accept as true. She looked up at Sir Richard as he drove, and the quirk of his mouth showed her that he was conscious of her regard, although his face remained turned to the road and the horses. She felt a great pressure of jumbled words inside her clamouring for release, but what she said was, “Did you truly mean everything you said yesterday, then, Richard?”

“That I love you and I cannot live without you? Every word! The only thing I said that I would like to take back, if I might, was that I am too old for you. I am not so very old after all, my love.”

“I like it when you call me that!” she said softly.

He laughed. “I am glad, for I intend to do it frequently.”

She suddenly blurted out, “I don’t even know when your birthday is!” though she had not known what she meant to say before the comment escaped her lips.

Sir Richard grinned, but said thoughtfully, “It’s true – in one way we know a great deal about each other, and in another very little. My birthday is 9th December, Pen, and I look forward very much to celebrating it with you this year. When is yours?”

“Also December! Mine is New Year’s Eve.”

“We shall certainly have a party for you then, if you would like it,” he said with perfect seriousness, as though it were the most ordinary thing in the world.

Pen laughed aloud at the sheer absurdity of her situation. “I cannot think… We have so much to say to each other, I do not know where to begin. Richard, how is all this to be resolved? Your family – everything! How in heaven will we put this imbroglio to rights and appear as an engaged couple in a normal way? Only think of the enormous bustle it will create!”

He said calmly, “Nonsense, brat. I have only spoken very briefly with Lady Luttrell, but she engages herself to help with your wardrobe, which is really the most pressing matter and something with which I cannot assist you.” 

He flashed a quick, wicked grin at her. “I consider myself to have no common level of address, but even I quail at delivering you to a Bath modiste in this guise and demanding that she outfit such a stripling as a young lady of fashion! She would turn us out into the street and call the constable!"

Pen giggled at the vivid picture he had painted for her. "I have already been arrested once today, Richard, and please do not think me poor-spirited, but I have no desire to repeat the experience!"

"I could never think that of you, and I do not wish to experience it even once! I anticipate that Lady Luttrell will provide you with a makeshift gown and then take you shopping for some more suitable attire. I hope she will also be good enough to bring you to London in a few days and stand by you as we marry. We shall tell everyone that we met and fell in love when I had occasion to visit her house in Somerset on business; you were there as a guest, naturally. I think we should say she is your godmother, for who will contradict us?”

“She is!”

“All the better. If she cannot bring you to London herself, I shall send my carriage for you with an abigail to lend you countenance, and you will stay with my sister for a short while. Do not worry about my family – I will deal with them. I will also obtain a special licence and arrange everything else. I will need to visit your aunt most urgently.”

“Oh, Richard! She will be simply furious!” Pen was suddenly awe-struck at the thought, which had not occurred to her before. Her aunt’s towering rage at Sir Richard was something she could all too easily imagine, and she felt suddenly guilty that he would have to face it alone.

His lips twitched. “I expect she will be. I do not care a jot. I would willingly slay dragons to win you, my darling– I believe your aunt Almeria to be quite the modern equivalent.” He glanced down at her for a split second and caught her eye, and they both burst into laughter at the thought. Presently she mopped her brimming eyes, and rested her head against his shoulder with an unconscious sigh. 

“Are you tired?”

“I am, a little. I barely slept last night, I was so miserable.”

“Pen, I hope you know that I would not willingly cause you a moment’s distress, and yet I have done so through my utter folly. When I explained our situation to her, Lady Luttrell asked me if I had kissed you, and told me I was a fool when I said that I had not. And she was right. How could I expect you to believe that I loved you, when I had not shown you any sign of it?”

She said a little unsteadily, “I thought you pitied me, Richard. I could not endure to marry you in such a way.”

“Oh, my darling!”

He broke off and fell silent for a moment, as he needed all his concentration and skill to overtake a top-heavy hay wagon that was swinging dangerously from side to side. “This is not the place to speak of it. I cannot kiss you, nor even touch your hand, nor look at you properly. And if I allow myself to be distracted, as I so easily might, I could kill us both.”

She chuckled. “Only conceive of the scandal when our corpses were discovered!”

“I can imagine it all too well. I want to live with you, not die with you. Let us talk of something else. Tell me about your family, Pen. I have never heard you mention your mother’s people; did she have no relatives who could have taken you in five years ago and saved you from the dreadful Griffins?”

“No,” said Pen with a sad little smile. “She was French, Richard – my father saved her from the Terror. I understand it was most romantic: he bribed her guards and smuggled her out of prison, then whisked her back to England and nursed her to health before they could be married. All the rest of her family were executed, or else died of gaol fever. And she was very happy with him, or so everyone told me, but never strong afterwards…”

“I am so sorry. I had conjectured that she must have died when you were small, as you never spoke of her.” His voice was full of emotion. “You have endured so much more than anyone of your age should. It will be my privilege to take care of you from now on and make sure that you are valued as you deserve by everyone around you.”

She turned her head to bury her face in one of the capes of his driving coat, unable to speak for a moment, and he did not press her. After a while she said shakily, in an effort to lighten the mood, “Tell me about YOUR family, Richard, since I am to meet them soon enough. I know that you have a sister and a young nephew, but no more.”

“Well, Pen, my father died ten years ago. My mother is one of those people who fancies herself always unwell, though there is little evidence of actual illness as far as anyone can tell. She is in fact just a few years older than Lady Luttrell, I should think, although you would imagine them of different generations.” He grimaced a little. “Her marriage to my father was not a happy one for either of them, and she lost a child before Louisa was born, which affected her very deeply. She is not a gorgon like your aunt, just a discontented woman, and she could only make mischief for you if I allowed her to do so, which I will not. 

“My sister Louisa you have heard me speak of; she has a managing disposition but a good heart and a strong sense of the ridiculous beneath it all. Do not be anxious about her! I believe you will be good friends once she accepts that all her misguided plans for me have been overset. Her husband George is an excellent fellow – we were at school together and have been friends since we were boys, although he is a couple of years older. He protected me from bullies then, and he did his best to prevent my mother and Louisa from forcing Melissa Brandon on me. He will be delighted to meet you, and I am sure you will find him entirely sympathetic. They have two daughters, Jane and Anna, who are nine and seven, and you have heard of young Ned, who is a terror of three years. I also have an uncle, my father’s brother Lucius, the old reprobate, and various cousins on both sides, but you need not concern yourself with them. I certainly do not.”

He glanced down at her. “My house in St James’s Square you have seen something of; I have a hunting box in Leicestershire and a house in Brighton, too, where I hope you will be comfortable. If you do not care for any of them, we will sell them, and find somewhere else that is to your liking.”

She did not know whether to be astonished or amused. “You take my breath away, Richard, when you say things like that!”

“Why so? They are only material possessions; I have no particular attachment to any of them. If you wanted me to sell my horses, that might cause me a pang, but I would do it.”

“I would not ask such a thing of you!” she protested. “What kind of monster would I be, to take away your pleasure?”

“I am relieved,” he teased. “I have now all the credit in your eyes of having made such a grand gesture, with no chance at all that I may be called upon actually to do it. But I am serious about where we live, you know. It means very little to me, as long as I can be with you. I collect, though, that YOUR home is a very different case, and that you are greatly and understandably attached to it.”

She smiled mistily up at him. “Indeed I am. I hope you shall not dislike it, Richard.”

“Why should I? I cannot wait to see the place where you grew up. Tell me about it; how long has it been in the family?”

Pen settled back in her seat, and drew a picture of her home for him: she told how it had been built in Tudor times and given to her ancestor by Queen Catherine Parr, and extended into its present form by her great-grandfather in the 1730s. She described the lovely valley in which it stood, and the river, the farms and the ancient woodland it overlooked. She told him how her father had loved every inch of it, and taught her to love it too, and how he had built a Gothic folly to celebrate her birth.

“I am only sorry there will be no time to see it all before I leave you today, Pen. I do regret it. But I think I must make my way to London in all haste – I hope Cedric will consent to take me to Bath or to Bristol, this evening or first thing tomorrow, so that I can hire a carriage there. I shall hate to be separated from you, my love, but the sooner I get back to London, the sooner all can be set in motion.”

“I know that, Richard, and it would be foolish to repine. But I shall miss you most horribly. I shall be at Crome Hall and the past few days will seem like a dream to me.” 

“And I will miss you too, my dearest. It stabs at my heart a little to think of leaving you so soon. Let us delay the evil hour. The bays need to rest, or Cedric will never forgive me, and I recall that there is a posting inn not so far from here. We shall stop for a while and then I will nurse the horses by driving slowly for the rest of the journey. I expect you are hungry, too, and you must eat. I am torn between my great reluctance to part from you and my desire to set about the arrangements so that we can be married as soon as possible and never separated again!”

He drove on for a mile or two until he saw the inn he had spoken of on their left, and swept through the narrow gate with a steady hand. The ostlers ran to the horses’ heads, and he leapt lightly from the curricle and set about directing them on how to treat Cedric’s beloved bays. Pen jumped nimbly down beside him, and they entered the rambling inn together. The landlord was only too happy to provide them with a private parlour, and Pen declared that she would not disdain a piece of the landlady’s cake. “A large piece!” said Sir Richard firmly. “And perhaps an apple?”

At length they were left alone together, and, when they had finished their coffee and Pen had demolished a large piece of fruit cake, a slightly charged silence fell between them. Pen found that she was conscious, as she had never yet been, of her male attire. She was glad all at once that her long legs in her cousin’s tight breeches were concealed under the table. Her heart was beating fast in her chest, and she felt sure that her face was probably unbecomingly flushed. She could not accuse her companion of showing any alteration in his manner: he spoke to her just as he always had, although she thought that there was perhaps a warmth in his gaze that she had not perceived there before. But then, she had not been looking for it. The difference lay chiefly in herself: in her awareness of his feelings and, most of all, of her own. They had snatched an all-too-brief kiss when he had taken her from the stagecoach, but that was all, and she found herself wanting more, and wondering if he did also: hoping that he did. She realised how very much she wanted Sir Richard to take her in his arms and kiss her, and her heart began to beat yet faster at the thought.

As though he had been reading her mind, he reached across the table and took her hand in his. “Brat, I have spent the past few days checking my every impulse to reveal my warmer feelings to you in case I made you uncomfortable. And clearly I succeeded only too well. But now everything is changed between us. We have made a too-sudden jump from what we were to what we are, and there is a certain awkwardness that i think we both feel now in being alone like this.”

Pen blushed even more rosily, and made some inarticulate response, she scarcely knew what.

He smiled ruefully. “So once again I am torn, because a part of me wants to make light, trivial conversation and smooth away your confusion, until you forget that there was ever the slightest constraint between us. It has almost become a habit with me to do this, and my instinct is always to protect you from the slightest uneasiness. We have been in the way of feeling entirely comfortable with each other, and it is sad in a way that this is no longer so. ”

The Corinthian turned her hand over, and traced the lines on her palm with one long finger. She was sure he could feel her pulse beating violently in her wrist, and she shivered deliciously at his touch. He laughed softly, and said, “But another part of me thinks that it is right that your eyes should be so bright and you should blush so charmingly, for this will be another adventure for us. I can feel the blood pounding in your veins, as it is in mine, and I think you must be aware that I want nothing more than to take you in my arms and kiss you most comprehensively, until the room spins around us and we forget everything but each other. God knows I hope you feel the same. And I never, never want to go astray again by concealing the depth of my feelings from you. It is merely that I fear if I begin kissing you now, I shall never stop.”

He released her suddenly and sprang to his feet, striding over to the window to gaze out sightlessly into the empty road. She saw that he too was flushed and breathing deeply, and she could not doubt that he was just as agitated as she was. She thought that his self-control was a fragile thing that she could shatter into a million pieces if she but went to him and reached up to kiss him on the lips. She was beginning faintly to realise the extent of the power she had over him, but with an effort she stayed in her seat, though she could not prevent herself from watching him. She had not been aware of looking at him like this before, though she must suppose that the part of her mind that was beyond her conscious control had been very busy in looking at him, and loving him, before she ever realised it. But now with her eyes fully open she saw the way his golden-brown locks curled against his stiff white collar, and she longed suddenly to twine her fingers in them, and to run her hands across his broad back, and cling to him. She wondered how she could ever have deluded herself for so much as a moment that she could do anything in the world but love him; how any other man could have occupied her thoughts for as much as a second after she had met him.

If he had looked at her then, with her heart written on her face, he must surely have kissed her, and damn the consequences, but, perhaps fortunately, he did not. Presently, though, he composed himself and turned to her again, smiling down at her wryly. “We might be interrupted at any moment, and I would not for all the world expose you to any disagreeable results if we should be observed here. Come, Pen, take my signet ring and see if it will fit one of your fingers. I want to leave you with something of mine. And then, alas, we must be gone.”

She rose and went to stand close by him, taking the plain gold signet he wore on his little finger from him and sliding it on to the ring finger on her left hand; it was a little too loose, so she tried her right hand and it fit better. It looked well there, she thought, and it gave her a warm feeling to have something solid of his to hold in his absence. But she was not entirely easy in her mind at taking it from him. “Are you sure?” she said dubiously. “I would hate to lose it, Richard. If you wear it, it must be precious to you.”

“It was my father’s, and it is precious, but not as precious as you. And now I can better judge the size of ring to buy you for your wedding band. Take it, Pen, please. I will replace it with sapphires and diamonds soon enough.”

“I do not care a jot for them, you know. Very well, Richard – I will wear it and it will reassure me that you are real and that I will see you again soon. Thank you!”

He smiled at her and took her hand, raising it to her lips and kissing the ring, and the finger that bore the ring, and then the soft skin at the inside of her wrist, where her blood still beat furiously at the touch of his lips, and lastly her palm. He closed her fingers gently around the kiss and then reluctantly released her. “Let us go. No, do not look at me like that! If I take you in my arms now, I will not easily let you go again. Back to Queen Charlton with you, brat, before my resolution fails me!”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this; if you did, there's more. A lot more. Heyer left her characters in a real mess, and I've always wondered *exactly* how they could be extricated, without causing a fearful scandal. Luckily, Sir Richard has some ideas on how to pull this off...


End file.
